Here’s another mapbox gl js example – this time using Mapbox’s new ability to visualize 3-dimensional data. I found 3D massing data of buildings in Toronto on the City of Toronto’s open data site. Buildings are coloured based on their height, and a click event creates a pop up with the clicked building’s height.

For my Developing Web Maps course this spring, I’ve been putting together a ton of examples using the new Mapbox GL API and their TURF API (a spatial analysis toolkit).

I plan on putting up a few posts reviewing how to use Mapbox GL over the summer, as I found the number of online resources lacking. I figure I can help rectify this a bit by sharing my own code and lessons learned.

As a preview, here is an example from the class I’m teaching next Wednesday where I generate a hex bin grid using TURF, count the number of airport points within each bin, and then color the bins using jenks natural breaks.

I’m looking forward to sharing more – but as you can probably tell by the lack of posts, it’s been a busy first year at the new gig at University of Toronto’s Department of Geography and Planning!

Much has happened since I last posted. Over the summer my family successfully crossed the border and settled in our new home in Toronto. Since then, we’ve been running around town, making sure all of our (and our car’s) paper work is handed in on time.

When in Canada …

It’s exciting being in a new department – meeting new scholars and students, chatting about new ideas, and exploring the institution. I’ve been happy to find that there’s plenty of energy at the Dept. of Geography and Planning and across the campus of U of T. At the moment I’m mostly acclimatizing myself to the new work environment, but as I get more comfortable I’m hope to become more involved in the various academic communities – like UTTRI and the various departments and centers concerned with health.

Teaching

This fall I’ll be teaching Analytical Methods (GGR 270) and GIS for Public Health (GGR 300 … temporary code), and in the winter term I teach a new course on developing web GISystems. For the latter course we’ll be using MapBox, an open source web mapping platform that I’ve found to be quite flexible. Should be fun!

I am also looking for highly qualified masters and PhD level graduate students to apply to work with me at the University of Toronto in either Geography or Planning (same department, different degrees). Starting 2016, I want to get my lab up and running, and motivated graduate students, interested in health, transportation, and/or cities are encouraged to apply. If you’re curious if you might be a good fit, please send me an email.

Conferences

I am helping out with a few conferences in 2016. First, I am organizing the second year of sessions on Mobility, Health, and the City with Jerry Shannon (University of Georgia) and Debs Ghosh (University of Connecticut) for the 2016 AAG in San Francisco. Last year, we had great turn out and very interesting presentations/discussions … we expect the same for next spring. If you have any interest in participating in these sessions, please send me an email and I’ll let you know what’s going on.

Secondly, I am co-organzing the workshops for the GIScience conference with Steve Farber, being held in Montreal in the fall of 2016. This is still a ways off, so I’m sure I’ll post more about this later on.

I will also be attending the TRB again in January and CAG in Halifax. Hope to see some of you there.

Research

Sample space-time paths for the CCTST grant

I’m still working away at the grant awarded through CCTST at Children’s Hospital and UC on the mobility patterns of children with asthma and their parents. Things slowed down considerably due to the move, but we’re finally picking up steam again. I expect to have more on that later on in the semester.

Beyond this, my former MS student, Nate Wessel, and I published a paper on cartography and visualization for bicycle maps – this will appear in the journal Cartographic Perspectives … a link will be posted when it is up.

Many other things are under review and I’ll post more about them as they are presented/published.

Two more papers were recently accepted for publication at the end of this past November.

The first article will appear in the Journal of Transport Geography, and follows up on the dynamic access to supermarkets research I published in 2013 in Health and Place. In the new paper, we examine transit commuters and find that this population sees a much greater increase in spatial accessibility to food stores than the automobile commuters in the previous paper.

The second accepted paper will appear in The Professional Geographer, and is led by Mark Horner (Florida State) and Daniel Schleith (my PhD student at UC). Using a jobs-housing spatial framework, we examine the older adult population’s ability to access employment opportunities in a number of Florida cities.

Horner, Schleith, Widener (in press) An analysis of the commuting and jobs-housing patterns of older adult workers. The Professional Geography.

I’ll repost here with links when the articles are officially available online!

Since 2004, I’ve run at least one half or full marathon a year – for a total of a few dozen half marathons with a 1:27:19 PR and four full marathons (Chicago, Tallahassee, Niagara Falls International, and Columbus) with a 3:20:31 PR. Hard to believe I’ve been doing this for 10 years now.

Tomorrow, I’ll race the Columbus Full again and try to hit a new personal record of ~3:15, with a “back up” goal of hitting <3:20. Columbus puts on a great race, with a nice flat course. I think I’ve always enjoyed these long races (as well as the training) because it gives me an opportunity to explore wherever I’m living – and forces me to get out and run in places I may be visiting.